Gemini News Archive

Web Feature | 2016 May 11

Before low-medium mass stars become white dwarfs they pulsate wildly and eventually spew their outer layers into space – often forming beautiful planetary nebulae. The same stars are predicted to continue pulsating during their transformation to a white dwarf, if they have helium in their atmospheres.

Press Release | 2016 April 5

Astronomers using the 8-meter Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea have probed an enigmatic, and unexpected, supermassive black hole dominating the core of a large galaxy in the cosmic backwaters.

Web Feature | 2016 March 22

During the week of March 7-11, 83 observatory professionals consisting of astronomers, engineers, astronomy educators, and other observatory staff brought their passion for science into hundreds of local Hawai'i Island classrooms as a part of Gemini Observatoryʻs flagship annual outreach program, Journey Through the Universe.

Web Feature | 2016 February 18

Web Feature | 2016 February 10

An extremely red planetary-mass object is confirmed, based on Gemini observations, to be a free-floating member of the Beta Pictoris moving group. This is one of only a handful of directly imaged planets available for spectroscopy – allowing scientists to probe the world’s physical characteristics.

Web Feature | 2015 December 22

At just 180 light years from Earth and a ripe young age of roughly 8 million years, this nearly solar-mass star and its orbiting, circumstellar disk of dust and gas are prime targets to better understand the processes involved in star and planet formation

Web Feature | 2015 December 14

A team of Australian researchers used two Maunakea-based observatories – Gemini North and W. M. Keck Observatory – to discover why some galaxies are clumpy rather than spiral in shape and it appears that low spin is to blame.

Web Feature | 2015 November 30

Observations using the Gemini Planet Imager are featured prominently at the Extreme Solar Systems III meeting which occurred Nov. 29 - December 4 2015 in Waikoloa Hawai‘i. Below are two results from a press conference on December 1, 2015.

Web Feature | 2015 November 23

Gemini observations provide a key scientific context for a striking new image of the gravitationally lensed galaxy group popularly known as the Cheshire Cat. Gemini played a critical role in the image’s scientific story by taking the spectral fingerprints of many of the galaxies that make up the foreground cluster which bends the distant galactic light

Press Release | 2015 November 12

The Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey (GPIES) is an ambitious three-year study dedicated to imaging young Jupiters and debris disks around nearby stars using the GPI instrument installed on the Gemini South telescope in Chile.

Web Feature | 2015 November 2

After 18 days of hard work during the recent scheduled maintenance shutdown, the Gemini South telescope is back on the sky! During maintenance, which took place October 13th - 30th, the 8.1-meter primary mirror received a fresh multi-layer protected silver coating - a key task for the shutdown.

Web Feature | 2015 October 29

A team of Norwegian and US astronomers, using data from Gemini North and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), have measured the time delay in images of a quasar lensed by a foreground cluster of galaxies

Web Feature | 2015 October 22

Gemini Observatory kicked off its week-long program Viaje al Universo with an opening ceremony at the University of La Serena. The annual program is an immersive week of fun, hands-on learning focusing on local students and teachers.

Web Feature | 2015 October 21

The nearest spiral galaxy with a nuclear starburst (greatly enhanced star formation near a galaxy’s center) is also the site of a long-standing astronomical mystery. The core of this galaxy is so shrouded by gas and dust that the exact location of its core has remained unresolved for years.